Top 5 Ways to Make Sure Your IT Service Levels are Delivering

Having service levels in place with your outsourced service providers is a great start toward realizing the benefits of sourcing. But, it’s only part of the story. To deliver a complete service to your internal “customers” who pay for and use IT services, you need a comprehensive view of the service from these customers’ perspective. These five service level actions will get you on your way to maximizing the satisfaction of your key stakeholders.

1. Put someone in charge. Create a Service Level Manager role in the organization that’s responsible for understanding your customer’s business support needs, aligning them with your service organization’s ability to deliver, and managing that alignment over time.
2. Speak your customer’s language. Define the required service levels from their perspective. Work collaboratively with your customer to understand the service and the impact it has on their operation and success. It is critical to keep the definition in business terms, avoiding technical jargon wherever possible.
3. Strike a balance. It’s a given that you won’t have unlimited resources to deliver services. Work with your customer to set expectations for what can be delivered in relation to the need. When that’s not enough, use the opportunity to justify additional investment in the service.
4. Get it in writing. We usually think of this advice from a contract perspective. However, it’s important that your customer sign off on the IT service level commitment you’re making and accept any service limitations you’ve agreed upon.
5. Make it headline news. Put together a communication plan to get the word out about service levels to your customer’s community and your service delivery team. Make it easy for them to hear about and remember. Build reinforcement of the message into your everyday service interactions.

Once defined, documented service levels are in place with your customer, you’ll have a much better understanding of how effectively your internal and outsourced services are meeting their expectations.

TPI’s ITIL Service Manager certified advisors can collaborate with you to assess the maturity of your IT organization’s service management processes, then help you identify and implement areas for improvement. Contact us today to begin the dialogue.